How companies benefit from explosion protection officers

In pro­duc­tion plants that work with haz­ardous sub­stances, mea­sures for pre­ven­tive explo­sion pro­tec­tion are increas­ing­ly com­ing to the fore. The rea­son for this is the increase in insur­ance claims due to fires and explo­sions, which caused costs of more than two bil­lion euros world­wide from 2013 to 2018 — this cor­re­sponds to a quar­ter of the world­wide loss of value.

For com­pa­nies, this means more work due to com­pre­hen­sive require­ments on the part of insur­ers. This often leads to uncer­tain­ty — although the solu­tion is sim­ple: employ­ees of com­pa­nies that process or pro­duce haz­ardous sub­stances, such as flam­ma­ble gas­es, vapors and/or dusts, can be trained as explo­sion pro­tec­tion offi­cers. IEP Tech­nolo­gies, the safe­ty expert of the HOERBIGER Group, explains how these explo­sion pro­tec­tion offi­cers use their exper­tise to min­i­mize the explo­sion risk in companies.

Pre­ven­tive explo­sion pro­tec­tion can be a chal­lenge for com­pa­nies. In addi­tion to tech­ni­cal­ly demand­ing require­ments and strict legal insur­ance require­ments, reg­u­lar train­ing of employ­ees and the prepa­ra­tion of assess­ments are nec­es­sary. How­ev­er, there is often not enough time or the nec­es­sary exper­tise to do this. Yet the top­ic is of great impor­tance, espe­cial­ly for pro­duc­tion com­pa­nies that work with haz­ardous sub­stances. The con­se­quences of an explo­sion are immense and can threat­en the exis­tence of the com­pa­ny: In addi­tion to the finan­cial loss due to the destruc­tion of work­ing cap­i­tal or a sub­se­quent pro­duc­tion stop, there may also be per­son­al injury and envi­ron­men­tal damage.

The underestimated relevance of explosion protection officers

In order to avoid this, employ­ees of pro­duc­tion com­pa­nies can vol­un­tar­i­ly train to become explo­sion pro­tec­tion offi­cers or qual­i­fied per­sons for the tests to become explo­sion pro­tec­tion offi­cers, or Ex offi­cers for short. They have a great deal of spe­cial­ist knowl­edge about explo­sion haz­ards and pre­ven­tion mea­sures, which they acquire in exter­nal train­ing. This enables them to become active in their own com­pa­ny as con­sul­tants for explo­sion protection.

How­ev­er, their appoint­ment is not manda­to­ry with­in the frame­work of occu­pa­tion­al health and safe­ty, unlike that of a com­pa­ny physi­cian. How­ev­er, explo­sion advi­sors are of great impor­tance to com­pa­nies because they are allowed to car­ry out a risk assess­ment in accor­dance with Sec­tion 6 (11) of the Haz­ardous Sub­stances Ordi­nance. In this way, they min­i­mize the risk of explo­sion in com­pa­nies, increase the safe­ty of employ­ees and enable com­pli­ance with the require­ments to which com­pa­nies are oblig­at­ed under Sec­tion 6 (9) of the Haz­ardous Sub­stances Ordi­nance. This applies to com­pa­nies that man­u­fac­ture, import, use and store haz­ardous sub­stances in accor­dance with Sec­tion 2 of the Haz­ardous Sub­stances Ordinance.

A wide range of tasks: From consulting to on-site inspections 

The advi­so­ry func­tion of the explo­sion offi­cer cov­ers all activ­i­ties from pre­ven­tive to gen­er­al explo­sion pro­tec­tion. For exam­ple, he pre­pares doc­u­ments required for the com­pa­ny, such as the risk assess­ment, a haz­ard pre­ven­tion plan or an explo­sion pro­tec­tion doc­u­ment. In addi­tion, the explo­sion offi­cer con­ducts instruc­tion ses­sions with employ­ees to train them in the han­dling of explo­sive sub­stances and mate­ri­als and to famil­iar­ize them with explo­sion pro­tec­tion mea­sures. In addi­tion, he is respon­si­ble for reg­u­lar inspec­tions of affect­ed work areas and for con­tact with the fire depart­ment and authorities.

Continuously expanding the level of knowledge 

In order for an employ­ee to be able to per­form all these tasks pro­fes­sion­al­ly, a four-day train­ing course is required to become an explo­sion pro­tec­tion offi­cer. This can be com­plet­ed at the TÜV SÜD Acad­e­my or at one of Ger­many’s largest train­ing insti­tutes, the Haus der Tech­nik (HDT). The train­ing pro­vides infor­ma­tion on all top­ics relat­ing to explo­sion pro­tec­tion and oper­a­tional safety.

The main focus is on the prepa­ra­tion of the required doc­u­ments, the expla­na­tion of elec­tri­cal and non-elec­tri­cal explo­sion pro­tec­tion as well as rec­om­men­da­tions for the avoid­ance of igni­tion sources. Fol­low­ing a suc­cess­ful final exam­i­na­tion, cer­ti­fi­ca­tion as an explo­sion pro­tec­tion offi­cer is award­ed. Through reg­u­lar train­ing and con­tin­u­ing edu­ca­tion cours­es, the ex-rep­re­sen­ta­tive deep­ens his exper­tise and keeps up to date with innovations.

“Ex Offi­cers make it eas­i­er for com­pa­nies to han­dle haz­ardous sub­stances and, as the first stage of pre­ven­tion, min­i­mize the risk of an explo­sion in advance. In com­bi­na­tion with our high-qual­i­ty explo­sion pro­tec­tion sys­tems, the risk of a fire or explo­sion in the man­u­fac­tur­ing indus­try can sub­se­quent­ly be sig­nif­i­cant­ly reduced. This enables employ­ees to work safe­ly and ensures smooth work processes.”

- Volk­er Kro­ne, Senior Appli­ca­tion Engi­neer Europe at IEP Technologies